Just Down the Hall

by Alessandra Thomas

  "Oh, relax, Alphonso. I guarantee you, this isn't as fun as it looks."

  "It's just that...all this, after Mr. Engineer Hottie was the one spending all this time, rigging all these votes for you." He sighs. "It's kind of romantic."

  "Yeah, yeah, super romantic that Mr. Hottie, who's also my roommate, was creeping around online trying to keep me from going out with any guys I might actually like, so he could keep me for himself."

  "How do you know he did it because he wants to be with you?" Monica asked. "Maybe this was all a big prank."

  "Oh...um..." I stammered, realizing that maybe she really didn’t know the true nature of what was going on between us. “Well…”

  Alphonso buried his face in his hands, then dragged them down slowly, pulling his bottom eyelids away from his eyeballs like we used to do when we made silly faces as kids. "Oh my God, Monica," he moaned. "Because they've been fucking. This whole time, she's been sleeping with her roommate and dating the guys the readers picked for her.”

  I turned to him slowly, my eyes wide with horror. "How did you…?"

  "I'm not stupid, Liz," Alphonso said. "Or blind. Honestly, just from the way you talk about him—"

  "You know what?" Monica said, waving her hands to cut off whatever he was about to say. "I don't want to know. It's not important. You broke it off with engineer guy, right?"

  I swallowed, trying to keep the rising tears from pricking at my eyes just with her words. "Actually, he wants to be an astronaut.”

  Monica’s eyes shot daggers at me.

  “Yeah,” I babbled. “Broken it off and kicked him out. One hundred percent."

  "Okay, then we take the prank angle. You say that he wasn't your boyfriend—he technically wasn’t. Right?"

  "Right," I nodded, taking another hard swallow, blinking back more tears. "He's actually a friend from childhood."

  Monica clapped her hands together, twice. "Perfect. He was just a guy playing a prank on someone he saw as a sister. And, um..." Monica picked up her pen and started scrawling on last page of the paper in front of her, "You should probably say something about how if any of the girls reading this have a boyfriend trying to control them in any way, it's not healthy, not romantic, borderline abusive. Okay?"

  God, that made me sad. Abusive. After so many good things had passed between Jordan and I, that was a tough pill to swallow.

  I nodded. "Absolutely right. You got it. Should I start in on these calls? I'd like to start planning the dates as soon as possible."

  "The sooner the better."

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves, as I pulled up Nathaniel Perfect's file one more time. Of course, I was worried he wouldn’t agree to go out with me – a guy like Mr. Perfect could very well have found a girlfriend since his application came in. The next guy down on the list would do almost as well, but I had sold Monica on this guy. I hoped like hell he’d say yes.

  He’d listed a work number and a personal number. It was ten thirty, so I'd almost definitely be calling him at his desk. I could have waited until lunch, in the normal world. But this was journalism, however pithy and trivial, and every second counted.

  Maybe speaking from one desk to another would make things more professional.

  "Visicom Incorporated, this is Nate." His voice was youthful but confident, just a little raspy with a clear smile behind it. The realization made me smile, too.

  "Hi, um, Nate. This is Liz Palmer from Philly Illustrated. I'm calling about a feature you applied to be part of several months ago...."

  Forty-eight hours later, on a chilly Wednesday morning, I was laughing so hard I was nearly crying into my scone at Joey and Hawk’s. "So you're telling me that you'd never heard of Liz Dates Philly and you had no idea what Philly Illustrated was, and you only found out when the literal guy next door told you, but you still agreed to go out on a date with me if you were voted in?"

  He flashed me a wide smile. "I figured the worst that could happen was you were totally crazy and I could just make a quick exit. But hearing your voice on the phone...I don't know. It made me feel like I should take a chance. You sounded smart. And...this is gonna sound weird but... something about your laugh. You sounded beautiful.”

  I observed the bright pink tinging his ears and smiled a little. Sometimes it felt nice for a guy to be bashful in my presence, even if just for a second.

  "Then I realized that my dad was the one who had signed me up, thanks to my kid sister, and I figured, why the heck not? Dad can be annoying but he has my best interests at heart. And, you know, we are the Perfect family, so..."

  I balled up a napkin and tossed it at Nate's head. He laughed and caught it in his palm.

  "You know, most people would be more modest in the face of such a laudatory appellation," I said.

  "Wait, wait," Nate said, pressing his palms to the table and looking around. "They told me this was a modern-day date but now you sound like you're from a Jane Austen novel."

  "Shut up," I said, smiling wide at him.

  I decided to finish my scone before we talked any more. After all, we had to be at the Franklin Park in forty-five minutes.

  Before we left Joey and Hawk’s, I pulled out my phone for the first of many selfies Monica and I had agreed I'd be taking today. I stood up and slid in the booth next to Nate, where he put his arm around my shoulders, like it was easy as breathing. I held up the phone and aimed the mirrored camera at us. Right before I took the shot, Nate turned to me and gently brushed a finger at the corner of my mouth. "You had a little crumb there," he said. The camera caught his eyes flitting over my lips.

  I smirked at how suggestive it was, how cute he looked with that little smile aimed at me. I marked the location and ended the "Best Scones in Philly!" caption with the hashtag Alphonso had chosen and Monica had grinned into approval - #LizDatesMrPerfect.

  When I pressed “share,” I secretly hoped Jordan was following along.

  Chapter 25

  Jordan

  I’d contemplated about a hundred different ways to apologize to Liz in the last six days. None of them had worked. None of them were good enough, anyway.

  I wasn’t really stupid enough to think my first actual attempt, the scone, would work out. The girl loved her carbs, obviously, but not enough to quell the lava-hot wrath that she’d shown me the day she’d found out what I’d done to Liz Dates Philly. Then found Toby playing footsie up to me.

  Toby was a problem, seriously. I was a smart guy, but I hadn’t seen Toby coming. I figured whatever there had been between us was over, but apparently she’d been counting on a repeat performance. . I’d have to figure out whether she’d been coming on to me every time we ran into each other at the office, or whether she was just trying to scratch a suddenly-occurring itch by coming to my apartment unannounced. I even suspected she’d been the one to switch our grading folders, though I didn’t have a shred of proof.

  Whatever. Toby was an issue for another day. I couldn’t decide whether to try to get Liz to understand that Toby didn’t mean anything to me, certainly not the same way she did, or whether to never, ever speak her name again in Liz’s presence.

  If Liz would even give me an audience again.

  I hadn’t spoken with her since our confrontation six days earlier, which, honestly, could hardly be termed “speaking.” It didn’t matter - I deserved it. In the three days between our fight and when I’d moved three huge boxes of my shit into Ethan’s spare bedroom, she’d certainly wasted no time expressing her displeasure with me. She’d used my towels as bath mats, left my industrial-sized box of Fudgsicles to melt on the countertop, and taped the “for rent” section of the newspaper - which we didn’t even subscribe to—to the front of my bedroom door. Oh, and I’d found my toothbrush floating in the toilet one morning.

  Ethan’s place may have been cramped and run-down and occupied by him and occasionally his maybe-friend-maybe-more, Natalia, who he had already had very loud sex with once since I’d been here, but it w
as free, and welcoming. Those few times I’d given him a ride home from a late class must have been all he needed to consider me a good friend.

  Liz was right. I needed to find a new apartment, not just somewhere to stay while she cooled down. This was not going to blow over. I’d fucked up, and I knew it. I’d decided to make a temporary move out before she started doing…whatever it was she felt brave enough to do. Maybe something with my shaving cream.

  I shuddered and settled into one of Ethan’s rickety dining chairs with the paper and a red marker.

  Just as I’d lowered my expectations from small-and-decent apartment to smaller-and-gross basement hovel, my phone started rattling against the table. Kiera.

  I hadn’t told her a thing about the fight between Liz and me, and I could only imagine that Liz hadn’t either - or else KiKi would have been on the phone with me and screaming in my ear much sooner than now. I had to admit, I’d kind of hoped Liz would call Kiera, just so I’d know she was upset.

  Girls trashed your stuff when they were pissed. They only cried to their friends on the phone when their hearts were broken.

  The message was loud and clear - no crying on the phone, no broken heart. I really had been just a fuck buddy to Liz, and forty-eight hours was far more time than I really needed to prove it.

  “Just move the fuck on, buddy,” I grumbled to myself as I picked up the phone. “Liz is not the only woman on earth.”

  I must have hit the pickup button before the second sentence, because I heard Kiera’s biting voice in my ear - “No, but she’s the only woman that you’ve actually liked. Maybe, like, ever. What the fuck were you thinking, JJ? How did she find out? How did you explain it?”

  “Too fast, Kiera,” I said, running my palm over my face.

  “Well, how about one simple question? What the fuck are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing. Not a damn thing. She doesn't want me. She doesn't want me so much, in fact, that she asked me to get a different place, and keep paying for my rent while she found someone new."

  "She used those words. Find someone new." Kiera’s skepticism bled from her voice through the cell connection.

  I sighed. "Yeah."

  "Well, okay. She wants you out. You should get out. But what do you want to do?"

  "I want to respect her wishes. Jesus, I'm not a complete asshole."

  "You know that's not what I meant," Kiera said gently. "What do you want?"

  "I want her!" I cried, throwing my hand up in the air. "I'm in love with her."

  "You're what?"

  "You heard me."

  "You have never told me that before, about anyone!" she cooed. Kiera was incredible in her ability to go from raging mad to emotionally moved in the space of a few seconds. If I didn't love her so damn much, I wouldn't be able to stand a five minute phone call with her.

  "I've never told anyone else that, either," I said, the whispered realization stirring something inside me. I'd known it, of course, known that out of all the girls I'd dated in undergrad, I'd never been able to say those three little words to a single one. Now I was saying that, out loud, but not to the girl who actually captured the feeling.

  "Maybe it's a good time. You already fucked everything up with her. Might as well toss out this one last life preserver. See if she'll let you float it back to shore."

  My head hurt. "Kiera, this is not the time for you to start breaking into poetic metaphors. I can barely keep my thoughts straight as it is."

  "What can I say? I've been reading Liz's column."

  "She's good with metaphors," I said.

  “Yeah, she’s been firing them off all morning on this weeklong date live-feed.”

  “What?” My head swam with confusion. “She’s doing another date?”

  “No, brother. She’s doing the date. Well, several dates with the guy. A week-long affair. I’m guessing she had to do something to make your cheating the polls all better for the advertisers. They called the guy with the most votes that didn’t come from you.”

  “You were stacking the votes too,” I grumbled.

  Kiera let out a short cackle. “Nowhere near as much as you were. Hey, get this. The guy she’s going out with? His name is literally Mr. Perfect.”

  “Mr…” My voice trailed off as I scrambled to log on to Twitter. I'd opened an account there one drunk night in college, used it to communicate with the girl I'd met at the bar who had nudged me into the mess of social media clusterfuck, and never touched it again. I sighed as I stared at the confusing mess of 280-word messages. "So. You said there was a hashtag?"

  It only took me a few minutes to find the beginning of the #LizDatesMrPerfect twitter thread, where the paper had linked to an article explaining what in the hell was going on.

  * * *

  "Dear Philly Illustrated readers,

  * * *

  So many of you have been following "Liz Dates Philly" in the five months since it all began, and voting your little hearts out to help her find Mr. Right! It's been quite a journey, and we've loved watching her adventures getting to know all these great guys as well as our favorite Philly date spots. Fun!

  * * *

  I shook my head. This was the opposite of fun, if you asked me. It was clear as day from the overuse of exclamation points that this was not written by Liz. My guess was on that power hungry pompously-dressed co-worker of hers.

  * * *

  Well, this week there was a big twist in this already-crazy love story. We found out that one of Liz's childhood friends, in town for grad school, decided to prank all of us by stacking the votes this whole time, voting for the winning guy by hundreds of extra each week! Insane!

  We enjoyed reading about Liz's dates as much as the rest of you - while Liz's friend made this little adventure entertaining, for sure, one thing it has not been is representative of what Philly Illustrated readers wanted it to look like. Although we didn't know this was going on, it was still misleading, and we're very sorry.

  To make it up to you, and to all the businesses that so generously sponsored each and every one of Liz's dates, we've decided to go back over all our records of each and every vote. The lucky guy who got the majority of votes from readers who were NOT Liz's friend from days gone by will be going on a marathon weekend--long date with Liz, stopping at each location that sponsored us from the beginning - on our dime, this time. We hope you'll consider stopping by for your next date or fun evening out, everywhere from 30th Street Station to Uncle Phil's Philly Phun Zone!

  For good measure, we'll be asking for your votes for one last thing—the best charity for Philly Illustrated to donate to, on behalf of all these incredible organizations. In the end, Liz Dates Philly may not have been exactly representative of your votes, but we hope you enjoyed the column anyway. Most importantly, we hope that our oversight will end up contributing lots of good to this crazy world.

  The lucky guy, by the way, looks pretty incredible. He's a research geneticist, loves his mother, and is darn handsome to boot. The only thing better than all that—for our column-writing purposes, at least—Is that his name is Nathaniel Perfect.

  Yeah, Nate's name tells us he's Mr. Perfect in one aspect - but will he turn out to be THE Mr. Perfect for our sweet, good-sport reporter Liz Palmer?

  We'll find out today. Follow #LizDatesMrPerfect on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Snapchat to watch every step of what we hope will be her dream date, and weigh in on what you think!

  * * *

  I sighed and ran a hand back through my hair. I had to hand it to Monica - she'd done a damn good job of handling this whole mess, even if she did use the word 'crazy" too much for just one little column.

  I scrolled back up through the hashtag. Damn. It was barely 11:00 and they'd already been on three dates? And they were illustrated with Deanna’s photos, too! I knew Deanna was really good at communicating all the little moments of each date, but she'd never tweeted them live before now. There was one other humungous difference - they'd never
looked this lovey-dovey-datey, either. Normally, she would catch an expression of disgust on Liz's face, the perfect polish of some jerk's shoes, or the awkward bend of his arm as he tried to play skee-ball or almost-put his arm around Liz.

  But starting from the very first leg of the date, at Joey and Hawk’s, of all places - Liz looked like she was having a good time. If Mr. Perfect was talking, she was listening intently, her chin resting on her palm with fingers curled around that gorgeous jaw. Deanna got a picture of them leaving, too, and when Mr. Perfect's hand hovered at Liz's lower back, I could swear she was leaning into it. And then – oh God, the one that hurt my heart the most – a selfie, taken by Liz, flashing her cheesy grin to the camera. Mr. Perfect looked smug as hell.

  Everything about this damn hashtag was pissing me off, but I kept reading anyway.

  About twenty minutes into my increasingly miserable surveillance, when I watched Mr. Perfect and Liz stroll down one of Philly's busiest shopping streets, laughing and smiling, I realized that I was only following Philly Illustrated's feed. Through the magic of social media, Liz’s readers had started a whole side discussion dissecting every moment of the date.

  I should never have looked through there. It only made me more miserable. It seemed the core group of people - a couple dozen - who had been following Liz Dates Philly were more than vaguely interested with the process - they looked forward to each week's update like people obsessed over their favorite TV shows, and some of them even had the crazy speculations and theories to match. There was the group who thought the paper had all the guys hand-picked in advance, and those who tried to dig into each guy's background and life, then wrote their own Tumblr and Facebook posts laying bets on Liz's success with each guy.